The Empty Flat
by Artful Dabbler
Summary: An updated rewrite of the classic Post-Reichenbach 'Adventure of the Empty House'. Johnlock. Story now complete! Thank you in advance for reviewing. I love hearing from you.
1. First glimpse

_Confidential Transcript_

_Recording taken 17/10/2013, 13.00_

_Psychologist: Dr. L. Charles_

_Patient: John H. Watson_

_Re: Annual review and assessment_

Have you started recording?

_Yes, John. But I don't want you to think about the recorder. It's just a tool…something to help us review what we accomplish here today. _

Right. All right, then. Where would you like me to begin?

_Why don't you choose a single day that has been significant for you in the last month?_

Wow. A single day. (_5 sec. pause_) There's one that stands out, actually, from August… the 23rd…really stands out.

_Would you like to talk about what happened that day?_

I could, I suppose. Do…do you want me to just…?

_Take your time, John. Start from the beginning of the day. Tell me what happened from the moment you woke up._

(_7 sec. pause_) Looking back, statistically, it… it had to happen on an off day. I mean, the good days – I'd learned not to count on there being many. It'd been off from the start. Bad. I remember…I remember hearing my mobile alarm that morning. It didn't wake me; I only set it because I had to work. And there was just…grey. Nothing. I lay there fifteen, maybe twenty minutes longer than I should have, but I just couldn't find the energy – no, that… it was more than that; I couldn't find a _reason_, not a real one, to get out of bed. God I hate off days. You feel bad so you don't move; you feel bad because you haven't moved…you get the picture…obviously.

I'd slept in fits and starts, and when I'd woken up for good at half four, it was because my left hand was seized up in a fist so tight my nails had bitten half moons in the flesh of my palm. It wasn't the first time – used to happen all the time, after I got back from Afghanistan. It stopped when I met him. (_3 sec. pause_) It started happening again after – well, you know. It surprised me…the first time it happened again, but not after. Damn nuisance.

I'll skip the part of the day where I had breakfast, shall I? Focus on the important parts? (_1 sec. pause_) Actually, I think I did skip breakfast. I'm never hungry when I'm depressed.

I had been at the clinic for about six hours that day before signing myself out. I hated working on my off days, not just because they turned me into a miserable git, but because I was afraid of making a mistake, of overlooking something, maybe hurting someone. It's too easy on off days for me to drift off into my own thoughts when a patient is talking, telling me about a problem. I'd sometimes just think of things I'd rather be doing… sleeping, mostly, or walking, but more often I'd think about conversations he and I used to have. Or, sometimes, I'd imagine what Sherlock would've said if he were in the room with me, listening to my patients, if he'd had the patience. Funny.

Sometimes, I swear, I could really hear his voice, you know, in my ear, in my head, belittling the intelligence of a drop-in or a colleague. Sometimes it made me smile for a moment, just thinking about what he would say, and then I'd know that I hadn't heard a word of what my patient was actually saying to me.

I remember - that day had been one of the ones when I'd been distracted, mostly, by the thought of his voice, his presence at my side. (_2 sec. pause_) That's why what happened on the way home was so unnerving.

I'd left the clinic, taken the tube from Camden Town and planned on changing at King's Cross, as I always do, but I missed my stop. I just hadn't been paying attention, I suppose, which is typical and I got out at Moorgate instead. I wish I could remember why I decided to leave the tube at Moorgate. Maybe I wanted the long walk. Maybe I thought it would help me sleep that night. I don't know.

It was busy as hell. Well, with the crowds this year, it's always busy but at six o'clock the crush of people was mad. I wasn't looking around much, just letting myself be herded along with everyone else from the platform, fed onto the escalator, mashed in on all sides, hot and sticky. It was raining, and I remember the lady in front of me had a coat that was dripping onto my shoes.

(_3 sec. pause_) It was about a third of the way up. Just…like a mirage – it's a tired cliché, yes, but I'm tired so you'll have to excuse me – a man holding an open book. But not just a man, not…not just any man – that face I'd know anywhere, that ridiculous fringe, those grey eyes of his, that presence…the one I'd been thinking about all that afternoon… and every afternoon… flashed past me so suddenly and so briefly from over on the down escalator that it took me a moment to register what I'd seen. When I did, it was like a punch to the throat. I turned around, stared back down the escalator, trying to see, again, what I thought I might have seen, but…nothing. I looked for that, that white square, the book that I'd picked up on first. I thought: you don't see that often. I'll be able to pick it out again, but… I wanted to go back down straight away, but I couldn't. I was stuck. I yelled instead, his name, hoping that that face, his face, would turn around and find me but it didn't happen that way, just a hundred frowning strangers staring up at me, like 'who's this crazy bastard? Wish he'd shut it.' I shoved as best I could to get to the top of the stairs so that I could get over onto the down side. Well, I had to go check. I had to make sure that my eyes were just playing tricks on me, that it _was_ just me, taking one step closer to madness. (_2 sec. pause_)

I went down as fast as I could. The people I stepped on or elbowed might as well have not been there at all. I was possessed by that single, what – thought? Fear? Need? Take your pick. I called his name again and again but it was useless over the din of the station, so I said it to myself instead, like, like if I said his name, maybe it would bring him back, conjure him or something. I don't know. I got to the bottom.

One of the station attendants didn't like me running and grabbed me by the elbow when I passed him on the platform. He wanted to know what I thought I was doing. I told him – odd to think about it now – I told him I thought I saw a friend, Sherlock Holmes, on the escalator, and I wanted to catch up to him. He was carrying a book; maybe he saw him? He said 'Good luck mate' and 'Don't you watch the news? Holmes is dead, the wanker' and 'Good riddance.' I might have hit him had I really been listening. Instead I scanned the crowd, but by then a train had come and gone and I could see he wasn't on the platform. Or, rather, I felt it.

His presence was gone. Again. If I'd let myself, I might have started to grieve all over again. Maybe I did, a bit. It almost felt the same; well, not the same as watching him… watching… you know. (_6 sec. pause_)

_Don't stop yourself John. Say what you mean to say._

Fine. It wasn't the same as watching him fall to his death. Happy?

_Go on._

It was like there was no air. There isn't, usually, down there, but I was used to that. This was different. I was faint, dizzy almost, and I had to brace myself against the tiles of the platform wall. I'll ask you, but I know what you'll say; everyone's the same: have you ever wanted something so badly, so very badly, that you knew it had to be impossible? That, that God or the Devil or whoever was playing tricks, testing you, seeing how far you could be pushed before you cracked?

_Is that how you felt while this was happening?_

Well, standing there, that was when it really struck me that I might have imagined the whole thing, hallucinated, maybe, from the insomnia…emotional stress. But a part of me was glad. It hurt, standing there, but it was something. It was a feeling, and I hadn't had many of those for months. (_5 sec. pause_)

_What did you do after that?_

I went home. I don't remember much about the walk home, except that instead of just letting my hand fist up like it wanted to, I kept my mobile in it just on the off chance I got a text…an impossible text. It was silent, though…cold, dead in my hand. No! I remember: it buzzed once, that's right, but it was just an ad and I have never, I mean never, wanted to throw something more violently in my life.

But, I got home.

I should have eaten, or maybe poured myself a stiff drink, or done the washing up, or watched telly, or done anything, really, when I got back to Baker Street. But I didn't. I wasn't hungry or tired or restless or upset. I just (_1 sec. pause_) sat, with my mobile in my hand, the whole evening. It got warm, the mobile that is, in my hand. Then a bit damp, a bit unpleasant, but I didn't even shift to wipe it on my trousers. I just couldn't be bothered.

I watched the light in the room fade. I remember that I watched the bright rectangle of orange from the streetlight sharpen on the wall next to the kitchen, and bleed the colour from the wallpaper there. I listened to the sound of the traffic outside in the rain. I guess I was just…lost…in the thought of him, and all else went numb. I must have shut my eyes at some point, but I have no idea how long I was asleep. I hadn't moved, even in sleep. Isn't that the oddest thing, now?

_What did you—? (cut off)_

I don't remember feeling the buzz of the text, but that must be what woke me. What it was, what I read…(_3 sec. pause_) 'Can you forgive me? –SH'

I'd, I'd read it too quickly. I wanted to read it again because I needed to be sure I saw it right but I couldn't because my vision went blurry and no matter how I held the screen or how I squinted or how hard I rubbed my eyes, I couldn't see straight. I remember crying with frustration, with anger, damning the darkness of the room and, at the end of my rope, I swore and I slammed the damn thing down on the desk and that's when I turned to see him standing in the open doorway.

I was terrified, I admit: terrified I was dreaming, or I really was losing it, seeing things, terrified to look away in case when I looked back…

I wanted to say his name but no sound came out. He stood so still like, like a photograph, a reflection on black ice. I wanted to go to him, but I was paralysed, pains shooting up and down my whole left side. I thought I'd be sick. We might have stood there an hour if it was thirty seconds.

When he moved in–into the room, he made no sound. His clothes, I'd never seen them before. He was in a grey hoodie, like some college kid. Ridiculous, but I wasn't laughing. I stepped forward, a man who didn't trust the floor not to give out under him. He just kept looking at me, quiet, like he was waiting for something. He still had a book in his hand, but I didn't know whether to be relieved by that or (_1 sec. pause_) or be frightened that it was just part of the same hallucination.

I got close enough to see the beads of rain on his shoulders, and I reached out. Can I be blamed if I was a little shocked to find that he was really there?

(_2 sec. pause_) I put a hand on his chest, and…I pushed him. I'm not proud of it, but I did. I pushed him and I hit him with my open hand, and then with my closed hand. He didn't fight back. No, he just stood his ground and kept on staring at me with those grey eyes until I was man enough again to stop and look back. And then he spoke, and it was there, his voice, Sherlock's voice, not in my head but there, really there in the room and it was my wish granted, my miracle.

_ Did he say anything to you?_

It was barely a whisper, but he said to me: 'John, I want to explain. I am so… very …sorry.'

And (_2 sec. pause_) that was it. I pulled him to me and the pain in my shoulder was terrible. I crushed him with all the strength I had. You know, thinking back on it, I was so intent on my…my arms around him that I can't remember, I mean at all, whether his arms were around me? I might have hurt him. I didn't care. He was back, and I would never let him go again. For a long time we just stood there taking it all in, knowing we couldn't. Not really. Not yet.

He was cold. I sat him on the sofa and pulled a blanket around him and I remembered, the night after I'd first met him, and our first case together: the stupid orange blanket that the paramedics put him in at the end of the night when it was all over and I think he was remembering the same moment, because he had that look in his eye.

Sitting next to him I started feeling dizzy again and I wanted to get up, take some deep breaths, I don't know, pull away a bit…until my head was clearer, but he wouldn't let me. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me back down. He had both of my hands in his and that really was something different from before. I can't say it was uncomfortable. Surprising, yes, but I was still coming around to the idea that he was in the room, let alone thumbing my wrist. He had never been much bothered with physical contact…went out of his way to avoid it, actually, much as he could. It was clear, though, that he had something to say, and he was going to get it done before anything else got in the way. Good, I thought. I had one or two things to say as well.

I remember what we said perfectly. It's like combat… it's, the stress of the moment makes every part of you shut down and just your memory is working, taking it all in. He said…he, um (_4 sec. pause_)

_John?_

Sorry. I'm just…it's…sorry. (3 sec. pause)

_John, what did he say to you?_

You know, I think I'm finished for today. Can you stop the recorder…please?

_(End of transcript)_


	2. Memory

Watson

_23/06/13 23.15_

'If I thought, for one moment, that I could have come back and still kept you safe, I would have. Instantly.'

'I see. So, what's changed? Why…why are you he— um...here now?

'Because it's over. The final player in the game Moriarty set in motion with his death has been…neutralised.'

'And… you've been where this whole time?

'Here. Well… London.'

'The whole time?'

He nodded.

'So it…was— did I see you today?'

'Of course.'

'Don't—! Sorry, I thought I'd started seeing things. You _were_ at the station?'

'Yes.'

'And, how long has it been safe, I mean, how long have you known…?'

'Three weeks.'

'And you couldn't have come back three weeks ago.'

'I, John, I wasn't sure how. I thought I'd need to be careful.'

'So you decided to spook me?'

'I didn't want to just…show up all at once, all of a sudden. I wanted to give you the idea that maybe it was possible I wasn't—'

'Well…job done, mate. Gave me a heart attack. You could have written, or told Mycroft… _does_ Mycroft know?'

'I'd rather he didn't.'

'Sherlock…'

'I'll tell him. Yes. In a while. John, you—'

'And how did you know I would be at Moorgate? _I_ didn't know I'd be at Moorgate.'

'Do you remember your breakthrough in online publishing? Your 'Study in Pink'?'

'Yes, what—?'

'How did you know where to find me that night, John?'

John had to think a moment before he remembered. Of course… 'the GPS tracking on the dead woman's smart phone.'

'Exactly, so long as it's switched on…'

'You could track me.'

'So when you didn't change lines at King's Cross, as you normally do, I expected that you'd overlooked your stop. It was simple to assume that you would switch back or leave the underground at Moorgate.'

'Simple.'

'For me.'

'So…you can read my email, too?'

'Daily.'

'And…you've been keeping tabs on me.'

'Hourly.'

'While I didn't even know you were alive.'

'Yes.'

'Sherlock, I _saw_ you. You were dead, on the pavement…your head was caved in.'

'John, you might have seen me, but you didn't—'

'Don't you dare! Sherlock, this isn't— don't you dare turn the showman on me. How? How is it possible?'

'Molly. I couldn't have managed without her. She's the only one who—'

'So she's known that you were alive, this whole time?'

'Yes, John, and she knew what the consequences would be if she told anyone. It hasn't been easy on any of us. But what had to be done, I did. And now it's finished.'

'And you think you can just walk back in here, after all this time?'

John could see that Sherlock was caught up short. He could see that he was having one of his sociopathic moments and he'd have to be patient. He'd have to explain himself.

'I grieved, Sherlock. I grieved. I saw your body on the pavement. And I've seen it a hundred times, a thousand times, since… in my…dreams, in my darkest thoughts there you are, a lifeless, crumpled mess that had once been my best friend, my only…real friend. You were dead, and you were buried, and you weren't coming back. Everything that I went through after coming back from the war, and getting shot, and getting depressed, was nothing compared to losing you. I mean, just look at the state of this place! I haven't lived, Sherlock, since you…left. It has been the worst year of my life but…but finally I accepted that you were gone. I was making progress. I'd accepted that you weren't…weren't coming back.'

'You shouted my name five times, running through Moorgate at rush hour. Does that sound to you like an act of acceptance?'

John knew: he had him.

'Dammit,' he breathed to himself, 'do you always have to be right?'

'Even _post mortem_.'

He couldn't quite bring himself to smile at Sherlock's flippancy. Besides, he could tell that the comment was designed to put him at ease, to settle them back into something like the rapport they had enjoyed before Sherlock's disappearance. But, with a tinge of emotion that was not sadness, John felt entirely sure that, whatever happened next, the relationship they had both cherished in the past was irrecoverable. What it had become, what it would be, he couldn't put his finger on. It was there, but had no form. He had no words for it yet.

He had gone too long without saying anything, staring into Sherlock's face – a face that, he now realised, had shifted into a look of concern.

'John, are you all right?'

He shook his head once, a faint grimace on his lips. 'No. You?'

'Not in the slightest, but I'm hopeful. Do you always sit in the dark in the evening?'

'You haven't been watching me through the windows, then.'

'Far too dangerous. I haven't been near Baker Street in months.'

'Only most evenings.' He scrounged for an explanation. 'Saves on the electric bill.'

'John… I'm sorry that—'

'Why are you apologising? No. Stop that. You had to disappear, yes?' Sherlock nodded. 'And that's what you did. It's me who should be thanking you, really, for keeping me alive.'

'John, please—'

'I can't imagine what you've been through in the last twelve months. At least I've been able to carry on as usual. Well, not as usual…'

It occurred to John that Sherlock, leaning against the back of the couch with his arms wrapped around himself, was shaking, and it wasn't for psychological reasons. He was soaked to the skin in clothes that had probably not been dry or clean in recent memory. He rose decisively to his feet.

'Come on. We've got to get you out of those. You'll catch your death.'

'I…I haven't any others. Unless…?'

'In boxes, yeah. I'll fix you a bath so you can warm up and clean up, and while you're …I'll see what I can find.'

Sherlock seemed reluctant to rise, so John took hold of both his shoulders and hauled him to his feet – a triumph, he felt, for one so much shorter. He nearly had to pull Sherlock up the stairs. He knew he didn't like to be fussed over, but this was not the first time John was reminded that day that people rarely get their wishes granted. Only, sometimes they do. He smiled to himself.

'What are you smiling about?'

'Nothing. Just thinking about Moorgate again.'

'That guard who stopped you: angry sort of chap, wasn't he? I would be too, if I was carrying that kind of gambling debt. I wouldn't take it personally, if I were you.'

At that, and at the top of the stairs, John was struck by the oddest urge: to sit himself on the top step and pull Sherlock down to sit with him. He shook it off with a thrill of alarm and carried on through the door on the left of the landing, into the dim bathroom, a whisper playing in his ear.

He switched on the lamp next to the tub. When the ceiling light had blown the previous week, he couldn't be bothered to fetch a new bulb, so instead he'd installed Sherlock's old bedside reading lamp and found it to be a marvelous improvement, except for when it came to shaving.

Sherlock sat weakly on the edge of the tub and John, without thinking, grasped the bottom edge of the hoodie with the intention of pulling it over Sherlock's head, but when he leaned in close to do just that, Sherlock turned his head, the tip of his nose brushing against the outer edge of John's ear, and inhaled deeply as he did so.

'What was that?' he asked.

'Memory,' Sherlock replied.

John didn't want to pull back in case it caused Sherlock embarrassment, should such a thing be possible, but at the same time, his small act of closeness had radically changed the light in which, he paused to realise, he was about to take Sherlock's outer shirt off. John desperately wanted to see his face, and read what he found there, but he was too close, physically too close to do that. It was too late to avoid awkwardness, he thought, and said simply, 'Arms.'

Sherlock raised his arms and John was able to pull off what turned out to be his only layer over his head. He willed himself not to look at what he had uncovered. Instead he turned on his heel, hoodie in hand, told Sherlock that he expected he could take it from there himself, and promised to find him something dry and clean to put on afterwards. He shut the door behind him and leaned heavily against it, listening to the muffled splash of water filling the bathtub. He looked at the bunched up shirt in his hand, and raised it to his face: there he was, too, overlaid with the unmistakable tang of cigarette smoke. _Sherlock, you were doing so well_, he mouthed to himself, knowing that anything louder would be picked up and commented on from beyond the door.

John understood what Sherlock had meant when he said 'memory.' It was so gradual as to have been unnoticeable but, over a period of months, Sherlock's scent must have slowly vanished from the flat – so gradually in fact, that by the time it was gone, John had neglected to miss it. Shocking, really, as he realised, now that he was surrounded by it again, just how profound an effect it had on him. It suggested comfort, familiarity, protection, excitement…

Excitement?

Words – words for what their relationship was, and could become, were whispering themselves in his ears, and each one did so in Sherlock's deep and beautiful voice.

It had been the last thing he'd put into a box. Hanging on the back of the bathroom door, a fixture of that room since its vanished owner had ceased to wear it, it had gone unnoticed long after all of Sherlock's other personal effects had been put away. When John finally discovered it, it had caused him fresh waves of pain, weeks after he thought he'd had the worst of it.

It was Sherlock's favourite mouse-grey dressing gown.

Being the last thing to go into a box, it was the first he removed now, and he did so not with reverence, as for some relic of a fallen hero, but with an eye to how stale it was, and to whether Sherlock would or wouldn't mind being given it to wear. The least he could do, John thought as he put his own arms into its sleeves, was to take the chill out of it. He looked back into the top box.

The next item was one that John had not overlooked, but had kept out intentionally: his blue scarf. Also a bit damp and crumpled from being boxed up, this had hung on the coat stand by the door for months after… after. He had received it in a bag along with everything else they had recovered from Sherlock's body after the fall, and it had smelled only of dry-cleaning. Molly had clearly gone out of her way to preserve what she could of the man she so admired, and John felt a pang of guilt, again, that he hadn't contacted her afterwards, or since. He had looked at the scarf daily, touched it when he passed, until good Mrs. Hudson gently suggested that perhaps it was time for it to be tidied away.

Best take the chill out of that, too, John thought as he wrapped the scarf around his own neck.

Now that the cause for sorrow had been lifted from the contents of all those boxes, now that it all had a living owner again, John peered into the boxes as though they were a time capsule, and enjoyed, though it had been mere months since they had been filled, revisiting the lost world they contained. Somewhere in the pile was Sherlock's violin, and he thought he ought to get that out soon, but first he had come across a little moleskin notebook. He took it from its box and sat on the bed – which would need linens, John reminded himself.

The notebook contained handwritten notes from each of the dozen cases Sherlock had worked on in their last year together, plus several Sherlock had worked on alone, before John had come into his life. His handwriting was loose and messy and favoured long, flowing diagonals – so unlike his own rather upright, boxy script. He could only read about half of what was on the page, but skimming his eyes across it, he began to reconnect with the life and the man he had thought was lost to him forever. The thought spread agonizing warmth through his chest, his limbs, and coloured his face. He leaned back on the headboard and enjoyed the sensation, the notebook clasped in his hands.


	3. Lies

Holmes

_23/06/13 23:45_

It was simultaneously odd to be sitting in a bathtub with the light he associated with sitting in bed casting its inviting glow across his shoulders, and irritating that he hadn't thought of combining these two pleasures himself at some point before he 'died'. This was one change he was happy to adopt on a permanent basis, though it did mean that John would continue to make a mess of his shaving.

Other changes had come with less welcome: the state of the flat was an evident reflection of the state of John's mind, and it worried him. On the other hand, he clearly hadn't had a soul in the flat beside himself, perhaps for nine months or more, on the evidence of the newspapers he had stacked by the door. No one would exhibit such a mess to someone they wanted to impress. He was still single, then.

Sherlock had been relieved when the doctor began working again, though on most days he worked shortened hours, suggesting a lack of satisfaction or comfort there as well. And he hadn't been sleeping. It took insomnia months to leave the particular effects that Sherlock saw in John's face. How often had he wanted to give him some sign that he was alive, and watching over him?

He was finished with hiding. The thought of ever-present danger had held him back long enough.

Was he pained by having to lie to John? He'd done it before, profoundly, to save him. He would do it again. But he had hoped – falsely, as it turned out – that he wouldn't have found it possible to lie successfully to John, that John would have been able, after accompanying him on so many investigations, to figure out that all was not precisely as he had described. He was disappointed that John hadn't asked him, for example, if indeed he believed his story about the danger being passed, why he had chosen a late hour on a miserable night, when the streets were more than usually empty, to return, rather than the middle of a sunny afternoon. He hadn't asked him, either, why he was wearing clothing so uncommon to himself, or why he hadn't turned the lights on in the flat when he had come in. He feared that with so long a time away from the challenge of aiding the world's only consulting detective, John was losing his touch.

Would he tell him that the danger was not, in fact, passed or that there was still one individual at large who had it in mind to see them both dead? Of course. Eventually. John could handle it. He thrived on it.

And when John asks him why, if the danger was still there, he had still chosen to return? Would he tell him another lie, or would he tell him something closer to the truth: that he could bear to be away from him no longer?

He didn't know what he would say. He hated not knowing, but he needed more information before he could make his choice.

John had left the bathroom so quickly, he failed to notice that the room contained only a single towel – his own, presumably, and this Sherlock wrapped about his hips as he stood in the warm steam that filled the room and encouraged the curl in his hair. He stood before the mirror and examined himself. The preceding months had not been kind to him, either. He was more lean, more sharply defined through his arms and shoulders and collar bones, and the low, slanting light of the lamp caused the scar across the left side of his chest to stand out clearly: a souvenir from the man who came closest to turning the fiction of his death into stark reality. He ran his fingers over the scar, flinching and noting that the nerve damage he had sustained at the site of the wound was still with him, might always be with him. His mouth was grim, and the creases at the corners of his eyes had deepened – there was little of the boy about his face anymore.

Sherlock's internal clock told him that it had been thirty minutes since John's departure to find him something to wear. He would have returned long ago if all was well and he had found what he wanted, but nothing sounded out of place in the rooms below. Had there been an intruder, and Sherlock worried that the possibility existed, surely he would have heard a commotion? No, the outside world had left them in blessed peace, if only for a single night. Instead, Sherlock was faced with his first little mystery.

He called John's name through the closed bathroom door. No answer. He cracked it open and the cold air of the hall slipped its fingers into the room and played over his bare arms and chest. He called for John again. No answer. Puzzled and slightly alarmed, he descended the stairs, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind him, skipping the bottom step as was his habit of old and making a damp thump as he did so. No response. He could see that the door to his own bedroom was ajar and a light was on inside. What he found when he peered in made him smile, and gave him something he would be able to use in making that important choice he had last mused over in the bath.

John was lying on the bed, wrapped in his own dressing gown and scarf, with his old notebook pressed open on his chest. He was fast asleep. Sherlock's grin widened as he tried to enter the room as unobtrusively as he could. He turned the light off, knowing that there were people watching for unusual signs in the flat, such as lights left on longer than was normal. John didn't stir. Sherlock was not about to wake him, knowing how precious sleep was to this dear and worn out man, but he was in a bit of a fix. The open box against the wall had nothing in it he could wear, and the pile of other boxes looked too precarious to get into quietly or usefully in the dark. Instead, Sherlock tiptoed out of the room and retrieved the blanket John had given him when he first walked in.

He could have settled himself on the couch for the night, but the sitting room was cold and uninviting. He decided instead to give himself one more indulgence. He returned to the bedroom – his own, after all – where John slept and, dropping the towel and wrapping the blanket around himself so that at least he would be decently covered, he laid himself next to the sole companion of his life.

In the orange light that filtered weakly into the room through the curtains John, drained of colour and of consciousness, was perfectly still. His face was relaxed and unlined by anxiety. Sherlock reached his hand over to the older man's face, and touched his cheek as gently as he dared. He hadn't expected it to feel so smooth, and it delighted him.

When John freed a hand to grasp his, and settled their clasped hands between them on the bare mattress, all apparently without waking, Sherlock was stunned. He had, probably, the decisive evidence that would allow him to tell John what he wanted to tell him... in the morning.


	4. One Under

_Watson_

_24/06/13 10.20_

It had been a wonderful, if disturbing dream that he'd had. When John woke up the following morning, but before he opened his eyes, he breathed in deeply a scent he could not place, but which he enjoyed immensely, as though it were the soul of a sunny Saturday morning distilled and lingering in the air. As he roused himself further, he sensed, firstly, that he was uncomfortably overheated, and secondly, that his left hand felt empty, though he had no idea why that should be. Then he felt the bare mattress beneath him, the scarf around his neck, the dressing gown he had on, and the odd, square-ish lump that was digging grooves into his ribcage.

_My god_, he thought, trying to recall how much he'd had to drink, failing to remember a single glass, and feeling none of the usual symptoms of a hangover. _I have lost it. Did I really rummage through that box last night? Sleep down here in his old room? _He groaned. 'And I was doing so well. So…well.'

But then John opened his eyes, and noticed – there wasn't one open box in the room. They were all open, and most of their contents had been strewn most of the way around the room.

'Sherlock!'

He unwrapped himself from the scarf, the dressing gown, and all that remained of his restful composure. The clock read twenty past ten. He ran his fingers through his thinning hair and felt it stick up at odd angles. He was meant to be at the clinic over an hour ago.

'Oh my god.' John's head was overfull, and he felt off-balance as he navigated barefoot over the unsteady drifts of Sherlock's material life and history that barred his way even through the short distance to the bedroom door. Books and papers, stacks of magazine and newspaper clippings, toolkits, fabric swatches, stationery catalogues, laboratory glassware, socks, boxes of pins and teeth, a wet tow—_his_ wet towel, were just a few of the more recognisable items.

Stumbling into the kitchen, John found him, leaning over his laptop, which he had wedged into the single square of clear space on the formica counter near the stove. He was wearing—

'Is that my shirt, Sherlock?'

'Also, I didn't have a toothbrush, so I used yours. Hope you don't mind. Coffee?'

'Sherlock, I – I'm late for work. Is that really the time?'

'You texted in. You're off ill. They weren't surprised after your early departure yesterday. Jasmine sends her love.'

'_I_ texted?'

'Your phone did. _You_ slept well.'

'Remarkably well, actually…did you do all that, um, in there, while I was…?' John managed, accepting a mug of lukewarm coffee from Sherlock's extended hand.

'Mm-hm.'

Milk, no sugar. It was the second time in his life that Sherlock had made him coffee. It was a vast improvement on the first.

'By the way, how long has the flat across at 224 been on the market?'

'Oh. Dunno…few months, maybe. Why?'

'Just curious.'

John only realised after the first bitter hit to the back of his tongue that they'd spent the last minute having a typical morning exchange that could have come from their life before…before.

'Sherlock.'

'Mm?'

'You're alive.'

When Holmes turned, and the light from the window shone sideways through his eyes and made them beam with the vibrancy of the late morning sky, John feared for his grip on the coffee mug.

'Well observed,' Sherlock teased with a sideways grin. 'You'll be back up to snuff in no time.'

'Thank you.'

Sherlock had already turned back to his laptop. 'My pleasure…really.'

John was quickly losing his line of thought in the crease at the corner of Sherlock's eye, so he forced a tactical change of topic. 'Anything interesting in the papers?'

'See for yourself.'

John crossed the kitchen, and laid a hand as casually as he dared on Sherlock's shoulder as he leaned in to study the screen. He had the Times 'local news' page displayed, and this was dominated by a two-word headline: '_One Under'_. Beneath was a large colour photograph of a man whose face stirred something in John's memory: broad cheeked, flushed, heavily creased between the brows. He read the top lines: _Underground workers dread receiving the radio announcement 'one under' – code for a suicide jumper on the tracks. Yesterday evening at about ten o'clock, London's latest 'one under' was one of their own._ John's memory kicked into gear.

'Sherlock, that's—that's the attendant from—'

'Moorgate, yes. The gambler.'

'How very strange. What a coincidence. He seemed like a normal bloke when he yelled at me yesterday. Just imagine, he killed himself a few hours later. How awful.' By his raised eyebrow, John saw that Sherlock had ideas of his own.

'Wrong on two points, I'm afraid.'

'Oh?'

'One: there's no such thing as a coincidence. Two: it wasn't a suicide.'

'I'm sorry, I don't follow you.'

'This man, Ronald Adair – Ronnie to his friends, was murdered. He was shot while he was standing on the edge of the platform, and fell under the train when he lost his balance. The damage caused by the bullet would have been obliterated in an instant, leaving nothing to suspect but suicide.'

'But, at ten o'clock there would have been loads of people down there. Someone would have seen him get hit, or they would have heard the shot, surely?'

Sherlock smiled and adopted the distant look that John knew so well from previous experience. 'You give the public far too much credit and the murderer far too little. He must have used a silencer, so no one heard the shot over the usual noise of the station. Plus, no one would have been looking at Adair with any interest – who would? He was a part of the scenery on that platform and people are far too self-involved to be observant, most of the time, of their surroundings. It's incredible what people fail to observe.'

'I see. Got that from the news headlines, did you?'

'Not at all. There's no such thing as a coincidence, remember?'

'I… Sherlock, you aren't making sense. You…what coincidence doesn't exist here, exactly?'

'I know this man was shot, because I was expecting it to happen.'

'Sherlock…you, you mean to say that you were at Moorgate for this…this other – are you working a case?'

'Excellent.'

'That's…' The truth of the matter came to John's mind like a slap to the face, and when he replied, he betrayed the disappointment he felt, which only served to deepen it. 'You weren't at Moorgate just to find _me_ yesterday, were you?'

'Not just, no.'

'It was an accident that you showed yourself to me. You would have carried on pretending to be—'

'Not at all! John—'

'You lied to me last night.'

'Oh, come on. It wasn't the first time, was it?'

'No, no it wasn't.'

'I was partly telling the truth. I _was_ tracking you, for example. I _did _want you to see me. Only, I was after someone else, too: Ronnie Adair. He's involved in…in something I'm following right now. Yesterday gave me too perfect an opportunity to pass up. My line of inquiry took me to Moorgate at exactly the time that your missed stop took you to Moorgate. Our two paths couldn't have crossed at a more perfect time, as it turns out.'

'And, why is that?'

'Because, with this man's death, the case has taken a turn, and Baker Street is precisely where I need to be right now. And you, John, are exactly the person I need to be with.'

Sherlock's words filled him again with that same warmth that had been his drug the previous night, and he worried that it showed in his face. He knew that it showed in his face.

'You still think there's no such thing as a coincidence?'


	5. Watch

_Sherlock_

_24/06/13 11:10_

'Anything else you've kept from me?'

John's coffee (excellently brewed) sat forgotten on the kitchen table. It struck Sherlock, as he looked from John's arms, folded defensively, to his eyes, how very many expressions of feeling a face could portray, even without the added expression of the body. He wondered if wine tasters found combinations of aromatic notes in the glass in the same way that he read combinations of thoughts in John's face. It reflected a heady mixture now, as he waited for, and feared, the next revelation.

'Sherlock? Anything else you'd like to share?'

He swirled the dregs in the bottom of his own cup and drained it, buying himself time, thankful again that John was such a patient man while he, an often selfish one. He knew he was walking a fine line, taking so much time to lay out the necessary facts before him. It had been such a long while since he'd had to explain himself to anybody that he found himself relearning how. Then there was the added difficulty of where his motivations were coming from. He still felt the pleasurable warmth of John's hand on his shoulder, though it had rested there only seconds. In the cool and darkened bedroom of the previous night, it had seemed so straightforward that he should tell him—

_John, so many, many things._

'As it turns out, it's quite difficult to pretend to be dead.'

'Why's that, then?'

'Big Brother, my dear John: the jackboot stomping on a human face – security cameras in every bus and tube station and on every street corner; one needs to eat, but the cameras are in restaurants and shops, too, and no one uses cash anymore – your every interaction is linked to your history. Your movement, your actions are predicted and anticipated. It's as though everyone with a lively pulse has his or her own personal dotted line and 'x' on the cultural map, moving with them: bull's-eyes. Everyone and everything is traceable by people in high places. I needed a friend in a higher place.'

'Mycroft...'

'…has been invaluable to me.'

'So, Molly and Mycroft have _both_ known you were alive. Good. Anyone else?'

Jealousy was perhaps one of his favourite tasting notes. 'The people working for Jim Moriarty.'

'But, they're dead, or 'neutralised' or whatever. You said so.' Sherlock was silent, inhaling deeply. He was taking John into the mystery, a partner again. 'Right?'

'There is one. A man, a very dangerous man – the second, perhaps, most dangerous man ever to cross our path, a man who has been a very difficult thorn to draw out,' he said cautiously, feeling the cloth of John's shirt rub over his scar, softly, but enough to cause a faint, lancing pain. 'I've had to…coax him. He means to kill me, though no longer in Moriarty's employ, and he means to kill you as well if he can. And, John, he can. He enjoys it.'

John ran his fingers over his own stubbly chin in the manner familiar to Sherlock as an indication of growing anxiety. 'So, there's a dangerous assassin on the loose, who wants us dead, and you're…coaxing him. Sherlock, does he know you're here?'

'I expect he has his suspicions.'

'You've _told_ him you're here.'

_Good man._ 'Not exactly. I imagine he got the idea I might come back to Baker Street after he heard you yelling my name at Moorgate.'

Did John feel as used as he had been? The look on his face suggested that he did, but was choosing to ignore that for the present in favour of the more pressing details of the situation.

'He…the assassin was there, in the station with us?'

'Yes.'

'Then, if he was after you, and I let him know you were there when I yelled, and he knew where you were likely to go, then how the hell did you make it here safely last night?'

'It wasn't a matter of how so much as of when. This killer, Sebastian Moran, he works alone, though he has a network of informants. He's a hunter, and he'd kill any man who got between him and his quarry. I made my way here while he was otherwise engaged.'

John was looking expectantly at him. He could see that he was going to have to draw the line that joined the points he had set before John.

'He's the man who killed the Moorgate attendant.'

'He murdered what's-his-name, and you knew he was going to do it, and you didn't stop him.'

' Ronald Adair, yes. He couldn't be stopped, like I said. Besides, it was far more important that I use the time he gave me to come here.'

'Sherlock…'

'Look, John, I had a single window of opportunity and I took it. If I hadn't, I wouldn't be standing here; you'd still think I was dead or…or worse, that I was out there and refusing to show it.'

'That is worse, yes.'

'But I did come back and it's good that I did. That window is closed again. Baker Street is watched.'

Just then a startled scream ripped through the kitchen, followed by the unmistakable sound of a can of dusting spray hitting the floor.

'I knew it! I knew I heard that voice. Oh, my heart! Oh _Sherlock_ – how? How?'

'Mrs. Hudson! John, clear her a chair, will you? No! Here, in the kitchen, please.'

Perhaps he should have extended to his beloved landlady the same courteous forewarning of his return that he had given John. The tiny old woman rounded the corner into the kitchen and, on tiptoes, took Sherlock's face between her hands and kissed him as though he were her own son. Indeed, Sherlock felt for the moment like he _was_ a son, wrapped in the warmth of her powder-soft perfume and cashmere, her papery fingertips, feeling the waxy print of her lipstick on his own lips and jawbone. He let himself be drawn down by the neck until he was level with her, and she whispered softly in his ear: '_Sherlock, I'm sorry. I've tried to take care of him, when he'd let me, but oh! it's been very hard. Oh, you're here!_'

It was just a flash of a glance, but Sherlock thought he saw some trouble change John's expression as he scooped the dusting spray from the floor and set it on the table. But the look was gone in an instant. Instead, he said 'Thank God.' It was a most unusual interjection from John, shifting a stack of newspapers from a kitchen chair, and Sherlock looked questioningly at him.

'If your being alive _wasn't_ a shock to Mrs. H, I was prepared to be very cross, Sherlock.'

'My dear Mrs. Hudson,' he began, risking a faint smile.

'Sherlock, how can it be? You were…were…'

He took her hands in his, and led her to the chair. 'Yes, Mrs. Hudson, but things are rarely as they seem,' he began. 'Suffice it to say, for the present, that I am not dead, that I'll be resuming my old rooms here in Baker Street, and that you must not, until I say otherwise or for any reason, go near the windows or through the front door of this house or be in danger of losing your life. John, that goes for you as well.'

'Oh, oh dear! Sherlock what have you brought back with you?'

Sherlock observed that both Mrs. Hudson and John looked immediately and with great alarm at the windows as though they themselves were the source of the danger, and he mused afresh on what it must be like to possess an illogical brain.

'But what shall we do? I haven't any shopping in and I'm sure John doesn't either.'

'Don't worry about that; Mycroft has given us a solution to such irrelevancies.' He drew from his pocket the means by which he had lived from the very day of his disappearance. John eyed it with concern.

'A credit card? But, Sherlock, you've said yourself that people can be tracked. You use that to order things in and it'll be obvious that you're up here.'

'He knows I'm up here already! In fact, I've pointed it out to him. I'm just showing off. This card can't be traced and no one gets a bill. Thank you, dear brother. No matter. We won't be under siege for long. The end game approaches, and by tonight, I hope to have Moran in custody. Then I can go about the dull business of coming back to life.


	6. Wait

_Watson_

_24/06/13 2:45_

Waiting was a funny game. There had come a time, around noon, when Sherlock had been all furious action. John had heard, from his place in the kitchen, the sound of Sherlock emptying of their contents several of the largest boxes in his room by upending them onto the floorboards. These Sherlock had taken down to Mrs. Hudson's rooms on the ground floor where he'd spent a quarter of an hour. 'Busy' was the only reply John got for his trouble when he asked repeatedly what the plan was. Mrs. H, who would not be moved from her safe haven at the back of the house, clearly had some part to play in this whole affair that Sherlock was keeping to himself for the present and that, in some unfathomable way, involved cardboard boxes. Sherlock had returned, pocketing his – and by _his, _John meant his own – mobile, and announced that all that could be done before six o'clock that evening had been done, and that in the meantime they would simply have to wait.

It was too risky to use the sitting room with its looming eyes open onto Baker Street, and Sherlock's bedroom was a disaster area. They had retreated up the stairs to John's little room off of the upstairs landing. For the first half hour they coexisted in peaceful silence. John enjoyed having Sherlock, albeit a distracted and tightly wound Sherlock, entirely to himself. He was still only grasping that he was back in his life, but here they were, spending an afternoon closeted away from a danger they shared, soldiers in a dugout.

This turned out to be a more a difficulty for Sherlock than for himself. John would have liked to ask him how he had spent his time while in hiding, but he sensed that the time was not yet right for such discussions. Sherlock was a pointer, fixated on his objective, and all else fell into irrelevancy. Soon, his impatient and active nature could endure the boredom no longer. He paced across the room at the foot of the bed on which John sat with his laptop in a fever of suppressed energy, biting his nails, tapping the furniture, and chafing against inaction. John could feel his own tension rise in response, though he knew it would serve no one to exhibit it in the way Sherlock indulged in exhibiting his own. This had lasted perhaps a further forty minutes, after which Sherlock suddenly stopped in his tracks. His slender shoulders sank as though he had weights in his hands, and with the bending of his tall and slender frame came a long protracted sigh, and he rather unexpectedly threw himself onto the bed next to John, stretched his full length across all the available space, and fell instantly asleep. There he had remained for an hour, while John, his laptop entirely forgotten, studied his dear companion.

In the light from the narrow alley window, Sherlock's skin looked paler, if possible, than he remembered it being. John passed his gaze over his long throat and noted the fine reddish hairs along his jaw line where he had missed them shaving, studied his deeply bowed lips, fixed into a permanent pout yet masculine in their definition and slightly parted in sleep. His eyebrows interested him: again, a surprising reddish brown and wispy, like the clouds you see high in the sky before a change in the weather. His eyes didn't move; he did not dream. Sherlock's chest rose and fell in the rhythm of sleep, and glancing through the gaps between the strained buttons on his shirt, John could just see one end of a very ugly scar.

'My Sherlock, what have you been up to, eh?' he whispered, daring to lay one short-fingered hand among the curls atop his head and recalling a brief moment of consciousness from the night before when he and Sherlock, disturbed in their sleep, had run their hands together in an exploration of touch, gazing into each others' eyes before sinking again into the folds of unconsciousness. John seemed to recall that the blanket in which Sherlock had wrapped himself had dropped away from his upper half, and yet he had felt heat radiating from him as though he possessed some secret inner fire.

_What am I to do with you? What are you to me? And what am I to you, eh?_ he thought, while the warmth that had been circulating inside him since the evening before turned into an ache.

John woke to find the light fading in the room and Sherlock again pacing about the floor at the foot of the bed.

'Sherlock, the time?'

'Half five.'

'Oh.'

John noticed that Sherlock yet again had his own phone in his hand, and he was studying it intensely.

'You're using my phone. Why, Sherlock, are you using my phone?'

'I've been looking up cheap hotels.'

'You – you mean you're not—'

Sherlock shook his head.

'You mean _we're_ not…' Sherlock nodded, 'staying here. You want us to go into hiding, like, proper hiding. What about Mrs. Hudson?'

'She's staying here.'

'But, Sherlock, the danger's too much. If this man is as deadly as—'

'So are we, eventually. Staying here, I mean. I'm just letting Moran _think_ we're planning on going into hiding.'

'Just by doing a search for hotels. Sherlock, you're saying this man can keep tabs on me like you've been keeping tabs on me. How the hell…. you know? No. Don't tell me. It's…fine. Just, tell me one thing?' Sherlock cocked his head to one side. 'Is this, whatever this is, this plan of yours – is it going to work?'

Sherlock had looked at John with an intensity that made him suddenly very aware of that part of himself that had been missing along with Sherlock's own absence. It stung him, like a closing wound.

'Do you trust me, John?'

'Yes.'

'Then it'll work. But first we must run.'


	7. Run

_Holmes_

_24/06/13 9.45_

Sherlock paused to consider, and not for the first time, if other people saw their thoughts as maps inside their heads, as he saw his own. His current thought map was overlaid onto a map of central London, and he studied both maps simultaneously as, with his eyes shut, he rested his head against the vibrating window of a tube car on the Hammersmith and City line. He fingered the skinned knuckles of his left hand – an injury he obtained while he and John scraped their way up the long-disused coal chute at the back of the house. John was on the seat next to him, his leg and arm pressed firmly to Sherlock's own in the cramped quarters of the packed and humid car. He had observed that when there had been a little more room, and they had sat marginally more apart, John had been bouncing his leg nervously. They had been on this line from Paddington, and as they were about to arrive at Mile End, he reckoned that more than two hundred people had passed in and out of the car in that time.

'John.'

Sherlock took hold of John's sleeve, and together they rose to their feet and threaded their way to the door as the train slowed on its approach to Mile End. Under the general noise of the crowded platform, Sherlock said that he thought they should go over-ground for a while, change up their pattern. 'We'll walk back towards the City.'

'God, it's freezing.'

'It'll help us stay alert. John, I've switched your phone off. Moran hasn't been able to track us for the last five minutes. We've gone off his radar, as it were.'

Hammersmith and City, Baker Street to King's Cross; Circle from King's Cross to Monument; Northern to London Bridge; Jubilee to Bond Street, then Central to Oxford Circus and Bakerloo to Charing Cross, Northern to Embankment before Circle back to Paddington and Hammersmith and City out to Mile End. Sherlock was certain Moran would take the bait; he couldn't have made it more 'apparent' that they were trying to shake Moran off of their 'trail', keeping to busy stations and losing themselves in the inevitable crowds of a weekday evening.

Passing out of the station, with a single glance back at the grey and blue façade, Sherlock smiled, confident that Moran would be incensed at losing the trace on John's phone, and would be hurrying in their direction from wherever he had been watching them, believing that their journey had come to an end somewhere out here in the east of the city. They turned left, and then right onto Hamlet's Way, as Sherlock still didn't want to be seen on arterial streets. Being dead, that is.

'Sherlock?'

'Yes?'

'Since we've got a bit of a walk ahead of us and I've been going along with the plan for the last four and a half hours on faith alone, might this be a good time to tell me more about what we're up against? I get that Moran was working for Moriarty and that, for whatever reason, he's intent on getting rid of us, and we're making that difficult for him and you think you'll be able to lock him up in the next few hours—'

'I will lock him up in the next few hours.'

'Right. But I still don't get the connection between us, Moran, and that train attendant from yesterday.'

'Adair.'

'Yeah, him. Was that an entirely separate case, and it just happened to involve the same killer, or… or what? It's all clear as mud to me.'

'That's because you haven't had all the facts.'

'Sounds familiar.'

Sherlock tried not to show it, but John's comment bit him. John had his lips pressed together and his nostrils flared in frustration as he gave the road ahead of them his full attention. He knew John would only dare look at him again when he himself turned away. He knew John meant to punish him for being remote and ungiving and, dammit, it was working. Sherlock's only course of action was to give him what he wanted.

'Well, here are the facts, then: Moran is an ex -soldier. In fact, he was serving in Afghanistan at the same time you were, John. The details of his career are irrelevant. Suffice it to say that it came to his superiors' attention that Moran has an acutely addictive personality, and this never manifested itself more than when he was committing acts of violence against the civilian population. Moran was dishonourably discharged. For a time he disappeared, though evidently he came at some point to the attention of Jim Moriarty. His reputation as a killer preceded him. He would have been just the sort of man to attract the patronage of a consulting criminal. It was Moran, along with several of Moriarty's other hand-picked hit men, who were employed to deliver the kill shots on the day I disappeared, had I failed to commit 'suicide' according to Moriarty's plan. It was he who had a rifle pointed at me, as I stood on the roof of Bart's.'

John faltered in his step. Sherlock pulled a hand from his jacket pocket and placed it gently on John's elbow. John, still not looking at him, simply shook his head, and carried on walking. Sherlock chose to continue his explanation, returning his hand, reluctantly, to the warmth of his pocket.

'Moran was promised my death, and like an animal teased with food it drove him wild. He felt that Moriarty had given him a special favour. He was…'upping his game'. Moran had informants of his own, and in the initial confusion at the hospital, while Molly and I took care of my 'body double' as it were, word found its way to Moran that my suicide had been a hoax. No sweeter words could have reached his ears. It meant that a hunt, a proper hunt, was on. He didn't dare let anyone else know I was still alive. He wanted to get to me first.'

'So you went into hiding, and this guy's hunting you, like the city is some kind of jungle?'

'Exactly, and I needed to get the upper hand.'

'How—?'

'…by keeping good company with many others who have disappeared in this city, John. The homeless network has been invaluable to me. The criminal world lies like a film on the underside of this city. Most people have no idea how to access it or what happens there. But those who live at its edges? They see everything. I was able to gather enough information to know where and how to break through into Moran's circles.

'Evidently, Moran's addictive personality gives him sideline obsessions as well, and here is where I found my foothold. Moran is a consummate gambler who plays for high stakes as a member of several underworld gambling rings. Sadly, this is an addiction that many share.'

'Adair.'

'Very good, John. Indeed, our friend Adair, the angry man on the train platform. He had gone to a particularly exclusive club – one that attracts only the most risk-taking, and the most desperate. Moran is its founder, well… its administrator, and its membership is small. Moran attracts his punters with the promise of winnings more than rich enough to cover even the most burdensome debt. And if the punters lose, their debts are nullified all the same.'

'How is that possible? Sounds like you couldn't lose.'

'That's what his victims found so attractive. Moran was backed by Moriarty, and he still has all of his resources to hand if his punters win. If Moran wins, however, the stakes change entirely. Moran never plays for money.'

'You mean, he would take…?

'Yes, John. He wants to hunt. Lose to Moran, and your days are numbered. He could be anywhere. Any breath could be your last.'

'Jesus. He's a madman.'

'In that, he kept good company with Moriarty.'

'Sherlock, how did you involve yourself in all of this?'

'The gambling club was my foot in the door, as I said. I needed to be ahead of Moran's game. I needed to get up close to him, study him, discover his methods and his weaknesses. I disguised myself as a desperate addict – not hard – one who owed dangerous people a lot of money.'

'But, Sherlock, he must've…how did he not recognise you?'

'I played my part well, and my disguise was complete.'

'You went to him, and you played on _his_ terms?'

'Had to be done.'

'Jesus, Sherlock. You risked your life…again.'

Was it pain Sherlock felt, hearing the tone in John's voice as he came to understand what he'd had to do to bring the whole affair to an end? Or was it excitement, seeing how upset John was by the danger he'd put himself in? He filed the question away for further study, answers already forming.

'Not really. I wasn't myself after all. The man I portrayed doesn't exist._ I_ couldn't be hunted any more than I was already. But that's beside the point. I discovered that Moran is a talker, much to his disadvantage. He told me about the last man who had come to him – a train attendant in a situation not too dissimilar to my own feigned one – and lost. He explained that he was giving Adair a few days to get his affairs in order before coming after him. He told me that he relished the idea of having multiple 'acquisitions', as he calls them, on the loose at the same time, and he looked at me with undisguised bloodlust. He even boasted about his proudest 'acquisition', one Sherlock Holmes, who had gone into hiding but had to resurface someday, and when he did… In short, Moran rather confidently gave me everything I needed to know, thinking that he was speaking only to a man who would soon die. As I said, I played my part well. And in the end…I won.'

'I— Sherlock, I don't know what to say. That you would risk your life like that…'

'It had to be done. I had no other choice if I wanted to keep ahead of him. Moran is vicious, but he isn't particularly intelligent. It never once crossed his mind that I would come to him. _That _was the greatest factor of my success.'

'So you won, against a man who plays for lives. Remind me, Sherlock, never to suggest a poker night.'

Sherlock smiled, in part at John's implicit acceptance of his methods, and partly at remembering the anger he had drawn from Moran the following day when, safely back in hiding, he had informed him that he'd been played.

'Does that fill in the gaps for you, John?'

'I… I think so. Sherlock, I can't believe you. You just…'

'What?'

'Nothing.'

They walked in silence for several blocks, weaving around the little clusters of people out on the streets and Sherlock gazed passively through the windows of the kinds of places people go to in the evenings: cafés, bars, restaurants. He couldn't understand it. He tried to imagine himself and John in such places, for reasons entirely their own, not on a case, not on business. He couldn't. This, out here, was where they belonged, he thought. This, this shared adventure, put fire in him. He looked down at John, and for the first time since Paddington Station, the good doctor looked back. He smiled.

'John, I think it's time we took a cab.'


	8. Pounce

_Watson_

_24/06/13 10.00_

Sherlock stopped the cab at the corner of Cavendish Square. John had noticed during their journey that although Sherlock had kept his demeanour calm, his fingers twitched, as was his habit when he was ill at ease. When he stepped out of the cab, he walked several paces into the empty street, stopped, and with his eyes closed, turned a slow full circle. When he opened his eyes again, he had clearly made his plan, and set off at a tremendous pace. He regularly looked around him, and stopped at every corner to study the approaching streets, as though assuring himself that he wasn't followed – by anyone except John that is, and he found it difficult to keep up with the long strides of the man ahead of him. For the most part, Sherlock was a powerful silhouette against the high-contrast of the streetscape in John's eyes, and this he followed steadily, trusting Sherlock not to lead them into dangers from which they could not escape.

Their route was an odd one. Sherlock's knowledge of London was extraordinary, and now he worked his way quickly and confidently through a network of mews and alleys that John didn't even know existed. At one point, they darted into the steamy kitchen of a kebab restaurant – John nearly losing an ear to a man sharpening a carving knife – in order to avail themselves of the rear door. Neither spoke during their time in the streets, and he thought with a touch of embarrassment that, had Sherlock been aware how fixedly John kept his eyes trained on his strong shoulders and the curly hair at the nape of his neck, John would have no secrets left in this world. They emerged at last into a small road lined with recently converted old houses, which led them on to Manchester Street, and so to Blandford Street. Here Sherlock turned swiftly down a narrow passage, passed through a gate into a deserted yard, and approached the darkened rear door of a house with broken bottle glass strewn before it. Out came his lock-breaking kit, and after a matter of seconds they were through and into the dim and musty house.

'Sherlock, where are we?' John whispered, grimacing at the taste of the stale air. Sherlock gave no reply, but motioned to John that he should follow him up the stairs. They had only one flight to climb and, without so much as touching the partly open interior doors of the abandoned flat, they made their way to the front room.

John went to the only source of light, and through the filmy curtains that hung in the front window, he could see—

'Sherlock, that's- that's Baker Street. We're looking at—'

'Yes, John. We're in 224, across the street.' Sherlock crouched and studied the only sign of occupation in the room – a cracked plate containing the remains of perhaps thirty cigarettes. 'Fascinating.'

'Sherlock.'

'These are all the same brand. The last one was smoked within the last six hours, but certainly outside of the last two.'

'Sherlock!' John repeated as harshly as he could without breaking out of a whisper. 'What the hell is this?' he said, pointing out of the window. 'There is a man in our sitting room. I can see him moving behind the curtains!'

'Ah. Good for her.'

'Sherlock?'

'Look closely. What do you see?'

'I see…I don't know, the outline of a man. He's standing fairly still. He's about your height, I suppose. It… wait, there's something a bit—

'What?'

'I can see…Sherlock! It looks like…' John was at the point of mistrusting his own eyes. 'That's _your_ head!'

'Are you sure?'

'Dammit, you're standing next to me; how can you ask if I'm sure? But, God help me, I know your profile. That's…that's—'

'—Mrs. Hudson with a cardboard cut-out of my silhouette behind the curtains. She's moving it from the front, crouched on the floor, so that her own shadow may never be seen, and where she is herself quite out of harm's way.'

'You're joking.'

'No, John. Think! If you were a hunter, and your prey led you on a merry chase, but you lost it. What would you do to catch up with it again?'

'I'd—I'd go back to where I last had it and, and wait for it to…Jesus, Sherlock, it's a trap. You've—'

'Exactly, John.'

He gave a snort of derision. 'It won't work, Sherlock. That's the stupidest—'

Just then, Sherlock drew in a shrill breath. In the dim light John saw that his whole body was rigid with attention. Outside, the street was absolutely deserted. All was still and dark, save only the brilliant yellow screen at 221b, with the black figure outlined upon its centre. Again in the utter silence John heard Sherlock's shallow breath, which betrayed intense suppressed excitement. An instant later he pulled John back into the blackest corner of the room, and he felt Sherlock's press his hand in warning over his lips. The fingers which clutched him were shaking. John had heard nothing, and the dark street still stretched lonely and motionless in the night.

Then suddenly John was aware of what had alerted him. There was an icy crunch of glass, and a low, stealthy sound, not from the direction of Baker Street, but from the back of the very house in which they were hidden. An instant later, steps crept up the stairs — steps which were meant to be silent, but which reverberated harshly through the empty house.

John was overcome, overstimulated, and his heart knocked against his ribs. Before him was about to emerge the figure of a hot-blooded killer, behind him was the figure of Sherlock Holmes, pressed to him in its entirety. He could feel everything – his chest against his own shoulder blades, his breath on his neck, the push of his stomach into his own lower back with every breath, the angle of his hip…everything. He gave out an involuntary sound and Sherlock's hand pressed harder over his face.

Sherlock slid back against the wall, drawing John with him in his powerful grip. Fumbling in his trouser pocket, John's hand closed around the handle of his gun. Peering through the gloom, he saw the vague outline of a man, a shade blacker than the blackness of the open door. He stood for an instant, and then he crept forward into the room.

John's next thought was that there had been some mistake. This couldn't be the man. He was too slight, too small. He was little more than a child: what, twenty three, twenty four? The light from the window betrayed the youthful blonde of his hair. John wanted to throw the light switch, bring this whole sad affair to an end, show this 'Moran' for what he truly was. Then Moran drew his gun.

He was within three meters, and John, released from Sherlock's hold, braced himself to draw. It was obvious that the man had no idea they were there. Moran passed close, crept to the window, and very softly and noiselessly raised the sash. As he sank to the level of this opening, the light of the street, no longer dimmed by the dusty glass, fell full upon his face. The man seemed to be beside himself with excitement. He swore under his breath, laughing intermittently, and kept his gaze fixed on the outline in the window of 221b. Then from the pocket of his coat he drew a bulky object, and he busied himself in some task which ended with a loud, sharp click, as if a spring or bolt had fallen into place. Still kneeling upon the floor, he opened the gun at the breech, put something in, and snapped the breech-lock. Then, crouching down, he rested the end of the barrel upon the ledge of the open window, and John saw his eye gleam as it peered along the sights.

That was when John realized that for all his youthful appearance, this was a man who was intending to put a bullet in the head of Sherlock Holmes, and in that instant Moran was drained of all humanity. John's thoughts turned entirely murderous and cold, repulsed by this creature. He pulled his own gun from his pocket, but before he could raise it more than a few inches above the level of his belt, Sherlock's hand was upon his, and he pulled both John's hand and gun back to rest against Sherlock's thigh.

He heard a little sigh of satisfaction as Moran hugged the butt of the gun into his shoulder, and saw that ridiculous target, the black figure on the yellow ground, standing clear at the end of his foresight. For an instant he was rigid and motionless. Then his finger tightened on the trigger. There was a quiet pop, and a long, silvery tinkle of broken glass.

At that instant Sherlock sprang forward like a cat on to Moran's back, and hurled him flat upon his face. He was up again in a moment, and with convulsive strength he seized Sherlock by the throat.

John was on him, profanity flying, and the sight of Moran's hands on Sherlock's throat burned into the backs of his eyes. John struck him on the head and stomped on the backs of his knees. Moran fell like a dead weight again upon the floor. John threw himself on him, the barrel of his gun pressed to the back of Moran's neck, and as he held him, twisting and clawing like an animal, Sherlock kicked the man's firearm across the floor.

Seconds later, John heard the splinter of the front door being forced open, and two policemen in uniform, with one plain-clothes detective, rushed up the stairs and into the room.

'That you, Lestrade?' said Holmes. 'Good. You got the tip-off, then.'

'Holmes?—_Holmes!_'

'Dear, dear Mrs. Husdon…'

'What the hell is going on?'

'Forgive me Lestrade, I asked Mrs Hudson not to mention me by name. I was worried that her call to you would be treated as a hoax.'

Lestrade moved to shake Sherlock by the hand, and John smiled, recalling his own need to touch Sherlock in the first instance, to assure himself that the man was real.

They had all risen to their feet, Moran breathing hard, with a strong-limbed constable on each side of him. Sherlock stepped up to the window, closed it, and dropped the blinds. Lestrade switched the ceiling light on. John was able at last to have a good look at their captive.

Moran was evidently blind in his left eye, and had the gaunt, starved look of a man prisoner to his obsessions. John knew the look well. Moran saw no one but Sherlock, and his gaze was fixed upon Sherlock's face with an expression of hatred and amazement. 'You bastard!' he kept on muttering. 'You clever, clever bastard!'

'Moran.' said Holmes, arranging his rumpled collar and pulling on the front of his jacket. "Journeys end in lovers' meetings", as they say. I don't think I've had the pleasure of looking you in the …eye.'

Moran stared at Sherlock like a man in a trance. "You damned clever, clever bastard!" was all that he could say.

'Sherlock, what's all this about?' Lestrade shouted over the prisoner, his temper rising.

'Apologies, Lestrade,' said Sherlock. "This is Sebastian Moran – a name that, I believe, is known to you.'

'I don't mean about him. I'm talking about you, you crazy—'

Sherlock ignored Lestrade for the moment. The fierce young man said nothing, but still glared at Sherlock. 'For shame, Moran. A hunter caught in his own trap? And with such poor bait? How very disappointing. How amateurish. You were too keen, Moran, too quick. Pity…I was expecting more of you.'

Moran tried to twist himself free and John went on the alert, but the constables dragged him back. The fury on Moran's face was terrible to look at. John's hand was still firmly clutched around his gun and he realized, coolly, that only the arrival of the police had stopped him from using it. He wondered if Lestrade's expression of wonder was anything like his own had been in the moment of realization that Sherlock was still alive.

Moran turned to Lestrade. 'You got me, right?' said he, 'So get me out, away from this attention whore.' He spat at Sherlock. 'I don't wanna hear a word coming out his mouth.'

Lestrade was still looking at Sherlock as though he faced a ghost. 'Not much change there, eh, Holmes?' said Lestrade. 'Anything else you'd like to say?'

Sherlock shook his head.

'Well, that makes two of us. I can't take much more tonight. But we're going to have words, Sherlock, first thing tomorrow morning. I want you down at the station. First thing. Am I clear?'

'Oh, you'll want to make something of Moran's gun.' Sherlock added, his eyes steady on the young man's. 'It's been used before now – recently, and _far_ more effectively. Arrange for a reexamination the body of yesterday's suicide jumper on the Underground. When you find the bullet, somewhere inside Ronnie Adair's crushed skull, you'll find that it was fired from this gun.' Moran was twisting and convulsing in the arm lock that the constables held him in.

'If you think so, Holmes,' said Lestrade, as the prisoner was moved towards the door. 'Is that all?'

'Yes.' He paused. 'Only, what charges do you intend to bring against him?'

'What charge? The attempted murder of Sherlock Holmes, to start with, if you can kill a dead man. Christ, Holmes—'

'No, Lestrade. Keep me out of it completely. The credit belongs to you, and only to you, for this arrest. Yes, Lestrade, be a good man and don't say anything. Congratulations! With your usual mixture of cunning and audacity, you've got him.' Sherlock paused, and looked at John. 'I wish to keep a low profile, for now. You understand, of course.' John's nod was so slight as to be imperceptible to all but Sherlock.

'Of course, Holmes. Thank you.' Lestrade answered, reaching out to shake Sherlock's hand again. 'My God. My God… First thing, Sherlock. In the morning…I'll send uniforms to come get you if you don't show up!'

With such exclamations, Lestrade followed his prisoner and constables through the door, leaving John and Sherlock standing alone in the harsh fluorescent light of the empty sitting room. For a time neither spoke, and John looked at the floor. After so much furious action, the silence that engulfed them was oppressive.

And then John realized: it had been just twenty four hours since Sherlock had reentered his life. It felt like years.

'That's it, then.' John said, inhaling and rubbing his hands together. 'It's over.' He risked a look at Sherlock, who nodded. 'No more running. No more hiding.'

'I know.' He said shortly. For a space of seconds, John thought that Sherlock was miraculously at a loss for words, but he wasn't. 'Finally, I can get my life back.'

John wasn't sure who cracked the first smile, but they both gave themselves to a welling of laughter that, for John at least, was a physical as well as an emotional relief.

'Sherlock, it's only been a day… a single goddamn day.'

'Shame this took _that_ long. Miss me?'

Still chuckling, John said 'Come here. It's good to have you back,' and put his arms around Holmes in a man-hug, complete with back pummeling, mock violence. For once the gesture was returned, and John, giving himself entirely to the moment, planted a kiss on Sherlock's cheek, only – he let it linger just a moment too long for it to pass as just 'friendly'. He hadn't meant to, but also hadn't the strength, when it came to it, to pull back in time. So there it was: a damned embarrassing, lingering kiss. And he knew that Sherlock had clocked it because he, no - both of them, grew quiet and very still, the moment of mirth between them lost. Sherlock pulled back slightly, not much, just enough so that he was standing separate from John, his face a hand span from John's own. And inside himself, John again felt his house of cards collapsing, only this time it was his _own _stupid fault. He knew it: he'd crossed a line that shouldn't, couldn't be crossed – not with this man. He'd showed his hand, made everything that was right…wrong, and he couldn't lift his eyes to look at Sherlock because he didn't want to know what he would see if he did. But he knew; he felt it – a look of betrayal, confusion, disappointment… of _distance_. Why couldn't he have just _left…it…alone_? He had to get them past the moment; it was killing him. He needed to get Sherlock talking again.

'Well…'

'I… sup-suppose,' Holmes faltered.

'We should get back, um, over the road. It's..it—'

'Yes. We—'

'—should check on Mrs. Hudson, make sure she's okay.'

'Of course. But…John.'

'Look, I'm-I'm sorry. I didn't mean…it's just the—the— I'm a bit wound up from everything. I'm not really—' he cleared his throat. 'Don't know what I was thinking.'

'Maybe I do.'

Sherlock moved slowly, his lips parted and his hand going to John's waist. He halved the distance between them, locking his gaze on John's when he finally looked up into his eyes. John, his heart hammering faster than he thought possible, leaned in as well, taking away another inch of separation; he could feel the air moving between them, the electric pull…he began to drop his eyelids.

Sherlock smiled, and then got that look on his face. 'Now I'm certain I do.' Still grinning faintly, he took a step backwards and swiveled on his heel. 'You're right, John. We should go home. I don't think we need to waste another minute here, do you?'

**Cherished readers... if you have got this far, give it a review. Ta.**


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